Sexual Abuse in Public Schools

Last week at work, I asked my co-workers what they thought about celibacy. It is not a topic I bring up at work a lot., but I brought it up this time. And one of my co-workers referred to celibacy as "an evil, forced thing." Again, this reminds me of how our culture has come to consider sex a necessity. People continue to believe that celibacy leads to sexual perversion, and they point to the Catholic church as their proof. However, these people do not understand that celibacy is a healthy practice and quality. These people also refuse to acknowledge that pedophiles unfortunately just happen to be attracted to little kids. The mainstream media has refused to report the large numbers of sex abuse cases in public schools. Perhaps because these people seek to hold onto their views of sex, they seek to blame pedophilia upon the celibacy policy of the Catholic clergy. Because they want to blame celibacy, they ignore the horrors prevalent in the public school system.

In January and February, two male teachers - Mark Berndt and Martin Springer - from an L.A school were removed due to lewdness charges against their third grade students. Springer seems to be the worst offender, but Berndt has over 600 photos of his students. The principal has been accused of failing to protect the children. A school cover-up is quite possible but seems uncertain. An entirely new staff now fills the school. New teachers who had previously been laid-off due to budget reasons have regained their jobs.

A General Accountability Office report by Democrat George Miller found that:

teachers or coaches were hired, or kept on school staffs, despite evidence they were sexual predators. In 6 of those cases, these offenders used their school positions to sexually abuse more children.

In one case, the victim was a young, disabled boy. In another, the victim was a girl in 6th grade.

School administrators do cover up the abuses. School administrators knowingly allow sex predators to resign and then write "glowing letters of recommendation" to other schools where the pedophiles obtain jobs under administrators ignorant of the abuse.

The GAO pointed to the example of one teacher who was the subject of whispers and suspicions of sexual abuse throughout his career, but no school system ever took action against him. The teacher, whose identity has been confirmed by ABC News as Kevin Ricks, had twice been asked to leave previous teaching positions – in fact, he had been banned from campus by one school.

Last year, Ricks was teaching at Osbourn High School in Manassas, Va., when a mother went to school officials to complain that Ricks was sending inappropriate messages to her son on Facebook. The school did nothing. Later in the school year, he was arrested at the school and admitted to sexually molesting a 16-year-old student at the school. He has since been charged federally in a string of alleged sex abuses that date back to at least 1979

A coach and teacher was forced to resign from one Ohio public school because of 'inappropriate' relationships with female students. But in true "pass the trash" fashion, he received a letter of recommendation, and was hired to teach and coach at a second Ohio public school district. There, he committed sexual battery against a sixth grade girl. He was convicted and sentenced to 2 years in prison in 2006.

Only two years? Such an incredibly light sentence for a repeat offender against the children under his care. How long is their incarceration compared to the Catholics who commit similar abuses? There is no celibacy requirement for teachers, yet Catholic clergy who have the celibacy requirement receive the harshest condemnation from the media. This culture is biased and discriminatory against celibacy.

Has anyone heard about John Karr? John Karr is an elementary school teacher who claims to have killed JonBenet Ramsey, Currently, he goes by the alias Delia Alexis Reich. Here is a list of facts about this elementary school teacher as of 2010.

One former "fiancée" says that as recently as two months ago, Karr/Reich enlisted her to recruit girls 6 years old or under, preferably brunette, for a sex cult she called "The Immaculates."

• A police probe of Karr/Reich was more expansive than originally thought—a 2001 child-porn case against him was dropped after Karr's computer was thrown out by authorities—involving molestation suspicions, four states and the FBI.

• Karr/Reich's first wife told police that she married him when she was 13, and was forced into a series of dangerous, degrading sex acts.

• At least two police departments—in San Francisco and Seattle—are investigating Karr/Reich.

if reported at all, the media regards sex abuse in schools as single and isolated incidents, ignoring the pervasive problem throughout the public schools and stifling public outcry. If you did not hear about John Karr, this explains why:

In accordance with a requirement of President Bush's No Child Left Behind Act, in 2002 the Department of Education carried out a study of sexual abuse in the school system.

Hofstra University researcher Charol Shakeshaft looked into the problem, and the first thing that came to her mind when Education Week reported on the study were the daily headlines about the Catholic Church.

"[T]hink the Catholic Church has a problem?" she said. "The physical sexual abuse of students in schools is likely more than 100 times the abuse by priests."

So, in order to better protect children, did media outlets start hounding the worse menace of the school systems, with headlines about a "Nationwide Teacher Molestation Cover-up" and by asking "Are Ed Schools Producing Pedophiles?"

No, they didn't. That treatment was reserved for the Catholic Church, while the greater problem in the schools was ignored altogether.

The first source for removing and protecting children against school predators are the Principles because they have the closest proximity to removing the perversion, but the federal government with its Department of Education has a strong responsibility to investigate the problem and to correct the problem. Democrat George Miller looked into the problem of school sex abuse, and so did the Department of Education under Republican George Bush. The Education Department found that: "More than 4.5 million students were victims of sexual misconduct by teachers and other school officials in the past decade.... The students ranged from kindergarten to 12th grade and made up one-tenth of all children to pass through public schools in the decade surveyed."

Has the Education Department under Barack Obama looked into school sex abuse? I do not know what the Education Department under Obama does. I do know that the Obama administration is primarily concerned with condoms, birth control, and viagra.

But the problem with pedophilia does not merely involve the public school system. The problem with pedophilia is everywhere in society. Boy scouts, the internet, Episcopal leaders, any place or organization with children will attract pedophiles because pedophiles are attracted to children. Celibacy has never caused pedophilia. No celibacy requirement involved in boy scouts, the general public, or the Protestant churches, or the school systems. Many pedophiles such as Jerry Sandusky are married and have kids of their own.

This culture refuses to acknowledge that pedophiles just happen to be attracted to little kids. Some people are so sickened at pedophilia (rightfully so) that they want to pretend that the problem does not exist. One blogger expressed the sentiment behind willful ignorance:

If you told me last week that something could be worse than a trusted teacher being accused of sexually molesting students inside his LA classroom, I would have told you that you were sick.

Sometimes, people are so sickened that they pretend it does not exist, so they cover up the abuse. But another reason for cover-ups is selfishness and cruel indifference. The mainstream media bias against the Catholic church and the cultural bias against celibacy has resulted in society ignoring the widespread sexual abuses elsewhere. The mainstream media has kept the general public ignorant of the dangers within schools. The mainstream media selectively reports abuses and ignores abuses that occur in places which contradict their beliefs about sex as wholesome and contradict their belief against celibacy.

Pedophiles are attracted to little children. That is just the way they are. I hate it. I consider it vulgar and sadistic, but I know that is just the way they are. In order to confront the problem everywhere in society, we need to understand this problem.

So, why does this culture refuse to acknowledge that pedophiles just happen to have this attraction?

This culture considers sexual activity as key to personal fulfillment and that any sexual desire should be acted upon for a person to embrace who he/she is as a person. When Mark Driscoll had an interview on the daytime talk show the View, Whoopi Goldberg had no clue how to live a full, great life without sex:

Toward the end of the group's interview, Goldberg appeared perplexed about the idea of abstaining from sex outside the context of marriage.

While appearing to be frowning, she said, "I just have to ask because you are talking a lot about being married; now if you are widowed and you meet somebody, you don't want to get married again, are you saying that the widow or widower should just do without because God doesn't like it?"

"I worship a guy who died and rose as a virgin, so that example would be that you can live a full great life without being sexually active," the Mars Hill pastor stated.

Goldberg, who appeared to want more of an explanation, asked "How's that work?"

How does that work? Well, people can have careers without sex. People can have friends without sex. People can enjoy games without sex. Very difficult to enjoy watching a movie or listening to music while engaged in sex. Very difficult to learn who people are as human beings during sex. I wonder if Whoopi Goldberg understands any of that.

Goldberg's question is symptomatic of a culture which considers sex the most significant thing of all time. Goldberg's question indicates the high value our culture places upon sex. Because of this high value upon sex, our culture hates celibacy and blames celibacy for causing pedophilia.

This culture believes that sexual desires should be acted upon as a part of intrinsic personal identity and fulfillment, so this culture refuses to acknowledge that a pedophile's sexual desires are actually his desires. Perhaps under this cultural belief, acknowledging their desires would mean accepting and approving of them. What exactly does it mean for pedophiles to "just happen" to be attracted to little kids - that this attraction is just the way they are? After all, if acting upon sexual desire is key to achieving personal identity and fulfillment... This culture is not yet there.

Instead, this culture blames celibacy for pedophilia because celibacy proclaims that sex is neither intrinsic, nor necessary, nor fulfilling. Celibacy proclaims that sex is a choice and that sex is irrelevant to personal identity. Celibacy proclaims that people can control their bodies and their sexual impulses. Celibacy proclaims that people can love each other without sex. Celibacy proclaims that sex is optional and that people can have wonderful lives without sex - statements that this culture seems to hate most of all.

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Note: I had another blog post ready dicussing Peter's vision in Acts and Jesus's comments on divorce, but I do not have the time to submit it here, unfortunately. The post will be up tomorrow.